Practice makes comfortable

I don't necessarily believe the saying practice makes perfect.   Really how often are we perfect?

But I do believe that practice makes us comfortable.  And that is true with teaching ESL this year.  I am not a teacher and, 8 months ago, I did not know how to lesson plan and the idea of filling a class with material for 2 hours overwhelmed me.

7 months of teaching and I have come far.  I realized that last night.  Granted I couldn't find the scissors, half of my word pictures had gone missing, I forgot to cut word slips for games in advance, and we got into the classroom late. Some days, I wonder at me.   But despite the chaos (mostly in my head), I was able to pull together the plan and teach a decent lesson.

With practice, I have learned flexibility and can modify my lesson if it isn't working.
With practice, I have learned to recognize if students are understanding what I am teaching.
With practice, I have learned to minimize my words and slow down how fast I talk (well slow down somewhat.)
With practice, I have learned how to lesson plan more effectively.

I still have a long way to go.  I need to continue to slow down my class pace and my speech.  I need to work on having my students speak more.  I need to work on introducing on new words.  And there are so many other things to work on.

But practice does make me more comfortable and I am hopeful I will continue to grown and be more comfortable as I teach.  But I am loving teaching and being with the people who come to my class - truly loving it - and can't wait to see where I am in teaching skills a year from now.